Archive for January, 2010
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Report from hospital in Haiti
Dr. Stephen Nelson from Bethlehem Baptist usually lives and works in Ecuador. Right now he is part of a team working at the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital in Fermathe, about 20 miles outside Port au Prince.
One of his coworkers, Martin Harrison, posted this report of conditions there:
It’s a 100-bed hospital and we have at least 300 people here. When we got here there was only one doctor, he was almost falling asleep on his feet from exhaustion and was absolutely delighted to see us.
Injured people are lining the corridors of the hospital and about 50 are outside the gate waiting. We have some security to try and control things and if somebody comes in who is close to death we’ll take them in and treat them, otherwise, we’ve worked out a system where we treat priority cases first.
We’re getting a lot of people coming here because they’ve heard that this hospital is still standing. There are people coming down from the villages. We’ve heard of three villages that were completely flattened not far from here. One of these was a community of 2,000 people and every single house was destroyed. And people are coming up the mountain from the city too. Yesterday a truck full of injured people arrived.
The problem is that we’re beginning to run out of materials to treat broken bones, which is the most common injury we’re seeing. We’re trying to ask some of the organisations at the airfield for help with supplies. There’s no electricity either – we’re using a generator that works on diesel but this will last two days only. In terms of injuries, we’re seeing lots of people with gangrene too – it’s not a pretty sight.
It’s the dry season now and there’s no supply of drinking water. I’m a water engineer and I’m meant to be setting up a filtering system today to create a more secure water supply. Our water will be for the hospital initially, and if we have more, we’ll hopefully be able to release some to the community.
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Kodiak flying to Haiti
As I mentioned earlier, my nephew has been part of the design team for the Kodiak 100, a new sort of missionary airplane. He and my niece have been living in Sandpoint, Idaho, called there by God for this work.
Missionary Aviation Fellowship was one of the first organizations to take possession of a Kodiak. That was in mid-December.
Now, a month later, MAF’s expertise and long-term experience in Haiti is bringing efficiency to the logistics of the relief effort. In addition MAF has sent down two planes to shuttle supplies.
This week another plane will be sent. If you watch this video carefully, you’ll see that it’s a Kodiak.
So, Brenton and Sunny, here’s one more example of your work in Idaho reaching to the peoples of the world for the saving of lives now and eternally.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Some Haitian Orphans to come to the US
We have prayed about the plight of orphans in Haiti, made so much worse by the chaos of the earthquake.
Yesterday the US Department of Homeland Security announced:
. . . a humanitarian parole policy allowing orphaned children from Haiti to enter the United States temporarily on an individual basis to ensure that they receive the care they need . . .
“We are committed to doing everything we can to help reunite families in Haiti during this very difficult time,” said Secretary Napolitano. “While we remain focused on family reunification in Haiti, authorizing the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the United States will allow them to receive the care they need here.”
Read the rest of the press release to understand more about humanitarian parole and to learn which children are eligible.
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
Church-centered initiative to serve Haiti’s Orphans
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)
This is a high calling, to turn our hearts toward orphans. I find the Together for Adoption (T4A) website helpful for staying tuned in. I encourage you to subscribe to it.
Some of us have been wondering how to make a difference for orphans in Haiti. Today T4A makes a hopeful announcement:
We are actively working on an initiative to mobilize the U.S. church to be the hands and feet of the Haitian church to care for its orphans. We want to serve our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ by coming alongside them and doing for them what they cannot do themselves: care for their orphans in crisis.
Please read the whole thing and pray about how to be involved.
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
US State Department re orphans
I already asked the question: How can we help orphans in Haiti? Here’s some more information, this time from the US State Department.
Intercountry Adoption–main page
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
What is his story? update
I didn’t know the story of the boy in the picture. Today I know just a little more. But even he doesn’t remember his name.
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
How can we help orphans in Haiti?
I turned to Jason Kovacs with the questions some of you have been asking
1. Can we bring some of the orphans to the US?
2. If not, how are ways that we can help now?
He responded:
I wish I knew the answer to the first question. Dan Cruver and I are following up on some leads and trying to gather the best and most reliable info so we can act as quickly as possible. We can keep you posted.
As for organizations helping orphans, the ones that I have been recommending are:
REAL HOPE FOR HAITI (there’s a second site too)
First two are small but doing BIG things in the lives of women & children. Friends of ours and others in the church here in Austin have worked with all these ministries and trust them.
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
One orphan no longer an orphan
This CNN video is a small reminder of the heartbreaking plight of orphans in Haiti. This was true before the earthquake, and even more now.
At the end of the report, one little girl is unexpectedly reunited with her father.She is a symbol of my prayer for the children of Haiti.
Lord, may all the children find their families, whether that means the family a child was born into or the loving family you have prepared for them elsewhere. Open hearts and homes to receive the desperate children of Haiti.
Friday, January 15th, 2010
Every picture tells a story
I’m paging through the posts and photos from Real Hope For Haiti Rescue Center, operated by the Zachary extended family. I received my online introduction to them from my son Abraham.
The Zacharys have been in Haiti since 1994. In the best of times which are never very good in Haiti, RHFH houses about 60 children who are sick and suffering from severe forms of malnutrition. A scroll through old posts shows before and after photos of some children now healthy and smiling and and other sad photos of little caskets for children who couldn’t be saved.
Now, times are far from the best. How do you find or make formula for the babies when the supply runs out? Will the visiting US pastor be able to get out of the country? With each aftershock, what will comfort 60 terrified children? Will their long-time coworker find his mother alive? Where will they find gas for their vehicle?
They have posted a number of photos taken in Port au Prince, some distance from the center. Some pictures in particular grab me and say: Every person here has a story. Each has her own pain or his own fear. These are not masses of millions. They are persons, one by one–persons frightened and grieving.
This is one picture that makes me want to beg for the story. What is his name? Where was he when the earthquake struck? What is is injury and how bad is it? Where is his mother–is she still alive or is she trapped nearby? Who will help him?
Who will bring hope to his dazed eyes? May God help him.
In addition to the children who are being cared for at the center, people are coming there from the city to try to get help. This requires more than ordinary resources for a ministry that already works on a tight budget. Please consider helping financially; there are easy links at their website for making a donation.
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Pray NOW for relief workers to enter Haiti
Dr. Steve Nelson is a good friend who has worked in Ecuador for years. He is leading a team from Quito to give medical assistance in Haiti. At this very moment as I write, they are trying to get from Florida to Port au Prince.
We arrrived in Miami around noon … rented a large van in order to get team and equipment up to West Palm beach where a chartered plane is waiting. Unfortunately … they had been waiting all day just to get clearance to fly into Haiti.
Apparently the air above the airport in Port au prince is full of circling relief planes trying to get their chance to touch down. There are only twenty spots on the limited airport space and as the planes land they download their cargo and take off and another attempts their own landing.
Franklin Graham circled the airport today for two hours after having had clearance to fly from here in West Palm beach. But there is a triage system in effect and as they were about to land, aC130 with search dogs “trumped” their landing and they had to return. We have met up the Samaritan’s purse team and now we are waiting together for clearance and have another hour of window of opportunity to get in today. Otherwise we will try and find a place to rest tonight and start again early tomorrow morning.
Please pray that we get a chance to get in … even tonight if possible. We are certain that the medical people we are slated to relieve are so very tired after this now 48 hour marathon in the hospital.
Pray with us too for those dear people who start to face new problems every day even after having survived the first impact of the earthquake.
Steve and the Quito team is experiencing what NBC news reported earlier today. Not only is the Port au Prince airport backed up, so are airports in the neighboring Dominican Republic, and then the roads between the DR and Haiti are in poor condition. As for ships, facilities at the Haitian port are almost completely destroyed by the earthquake.
Pray for God’s provision of a way in.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
“There are foreign countries closer to my Mama!”
There’s a new kind of plane flying to the unreached peoples now. The Kodiak holds more passengers than previous small missions planes. It can take off or land on a much shorter landing strip. And it uses less expensive fuel than most current small planes.
I have a special interest in the Kodiak. My niece and her husband moved way up to Sandpoint, Idaho, soon after their marriage, so Brenton could work for Quest Aircraft Company helping design the Kodiak. Sunny wrote me recently:
I have to remind myself why we are here (because God called us to this place, this company, this mission). I especially need to be reminded around holidays. I know you will understand when I say, there are foreign countries I could live in and still be closer to my Mama! Not everybody understands what that is like, to leave your whole family behind because God called you to a place. And not everybody would see it as such a big deal because after all, we are still in the States.
Well, here’s the big deal. MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) received their first Kodiak in March 2009. JAARS (the aviation arm of Wycliffe/SIL) dedicated their first Kodiak in September, for use in Papua New Guinea. New Tribes Mission has ordered 14 Kodiaks and took possession of their first just last week.
And those are only three of the agencies who will be using Kodiaks. We can pray that they are just the beginning of God’s use of the Kodiak for getting to some of the hardest-to-reach places of the world.
So I say to Sunny: You and Brenton are indeed part of spreading the fame of Jesus’ name where it hasn’t been known. As hard as it can be sometimes, there’s no better place to be than where God wants you to be. I loved you already and I love you even more now.
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
How cold is it? 5
One more time, I want to remind you it can get really cold in Minnesota.
How cold is that? If you don’t have a sled, no prob.
